


it's a process

by hawberries



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s08e17 Goodbye Stranger, Gen, M/M, Mild Gore, Trueform, angels are cosmic horrors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 07:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/732769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawberries/pseuds/hawberries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“No,” gasps Castiel, and his blade falls with a clatter and his hands shake and Naomi thinks, <i>we’ve got a long way to go.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	it's a process

_1._  
"No," gasps Castiel, and his blade falls with a clatter and his hands shake and Naomi thinks, _we've got a long way to go._

But that's the good thing about Heaven: they have all the time they need.

 _2._  
She goes easy on him at first: the simulacrum Dean shouts and rages and throws punches, harder than his brittle human hands really could; he bears down on Castiel with vile fury and his tongue drips lies and venom and Castiel's body jerks, his blade falls, and he simply allows it.

 _3._  
The full-body jerk is called a flinch. She'd forgotten; it's been a long time since she's seen anyone do that, because it's been a long time since she's visited humans personally. It looks wrong and awkward on his body; angel shoulders were not meant to flinch. _Angels_ are not meant to flinch.

 _Kill him_ , she murmurs, and lifts one of her many hands to Castiel's blade arm, to guide it.

 _4._  
He shakes when he is done; his flames quiver and his bones tremble and his wings fold like light to wrap around his body. It's sad; it's almost pathetic. It was only a simulation.

He stares at his sword, silver and then abruptly red where it's touched the blood. Naomi brings out the next simulation, and Castiel jerks--shakes-- _flinches_ \--and his blade falls, skitters across the ground, leaving scuffs of red.

(She recalls that this particular sample was taken from a man in Kiryandongo--old, but his grandchildren feel his absence keenly. She'd been careful to borrow the flesh and bones that made up her raw materials from all different parts of the insect-strewn planet; the Winchesters wouldn't notice anything that their ludicrously selective media didn't, and that didn't notice anything outside of the United States of America.)

 _Again_ , she commands, and he folds down even tighter, and shakes so hard his aureole blurs.

 _5._  
 _Again_.

 _10._  
 _Again_ , she commands, and he obeys.

11.  
Heaven completes almost two proximal rotations before he is ready to continue, but eventually, he does.

 _52_.  
Dean stops fighting back, but Castiel doesn't falter. A bubble of pride rises in her thorax. She thinks, _I made that._

 _240._  
"No," says Dean, and Castiel freezes.

_241._  
 _Again._

Naomi is patient.

 _588._  
"Cas, please," says Dean, and Castiel shakes.

_589._  
 _Again._

_667._  
(She skips inauspicious numbers.)

 _954._  
"No, Cas, please, please don't do this," begs Dean; his voice breaks, he reaches out with one rough, trembling hand, and Castiel makes a noise like atoms being crushed, and his blade falls.

 _1,260_.  
 _Stop dropping your sword,_ Naomi roars, incandescent with frustration. Her wings fill the space; her flames bristle; her ribbons swell. Castiel cowers before her, his wings boiling on the ground in deferment, and she personally pulls the next simulation apart, to demonstrate how it's done. She uses more force than is strictly necessary. The warm remnants of a young woman from Palenchia end up smeared across their vessels.

 _2,865._  
Dean runs from Castiel this time, and he pursues without needing to be told. Naomi is delighted.

 _4,408._  
Naomi decides that Castiel is ready for a challenge, so Dean catches hold of his cheek and falls forward to press his mouth against Castiel's. Castiel does not flinch, not even as the simulation coughs a Lismore teenager's blood directly onto his lips, one constructed hand clutching its perforated breast, but his vessel is violently sick afterwards, heaves up a small puddle of bile. It drips down his chin. Vessels are such messy things, she thinks; too alike to the humans they're meant to emulate.

 _4,409._  
But he's gotten so much better.

 _6,577._  
She hones him, the thin edges of her feathers smoothing against both his spines; she fills him with celestial intent, til he glows with it, til he's rigid and his eyes blaze like so many thousand little suns.

 _8,143._  
He is sharp, focused, a beam of light aiming for the clumsily-beating heart of the most persistent cockroach Naomi has ever encountered--

 _8,398._  
He is cold, clear wrath, a sharp edge of ice set aflame--

 _8,521._  
Dean Winchester crawls on his knees, on his belly, his face turned up like a helpless child; he pleads, he cajoles, he sings a litany of pretty, empty words. Castiel kills him.

 _8,590._  
He's beautiful.

 _8,672._  
He's ready.

 **0.**  
Dean Winchester says, _I need you_ , and Naomi watches her beautiful, precise angel unravel before her very eyes.

Castiel's blade falls.

**Author's Note:**

> i had a lot of emotions about the most recent episode, please forgive this mess. i haven't read anyone else's take on castiel's training process, so apologies if this came out similar to fic already in existence!
> 
> originally posted to [tumblr](http://sapphicdalliances.tumblr.com/post/45991598703) 22/March, 2013


End file.
